Christian Gaines is the new executive director of ArtPrize.Courtesy Photo

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – An executive at IMDb.com and a past executive at Cannes Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival is the new director of ArtPrize.

Christian Gaines, formerly director of festivals at the American Film Institute and director of the Hawaii International Film Festival, was introduced Monday, April 22, as the new executive director of the urban exhibition and $560,000 competition.

A business development specialist with more than two decades of experience in staff management, fundraising, technology services and programming for major film festivals, Gaines was in Grand Rapids for ArtPrize’s Premiere event and the opening of Artist Registration on Monday.

Gaines, whose first day on the job was Monday, said the links that ArtPrize fosters between artists and audiences was a major attraction for him.

“Just like a film festival, ArtPrize is about audiences and artists and art and connections between them,” he said.

“I think it’s great that it puts artists on a pedestal to do their best work, and it encourages audiences to develop a voice and feel their voice counts and means something,” he said. “All of those things you can find in the film festival world, just like ArtPrize.

Most recently with IMDb.com, which is owned by Amazon.com, Gaines oversaw the global expansion of withoutabox.com, a submissions platform that connects filmmakers to more than 1,000 film festivals worldwide.

“It was exciting to learn more about an organization that’s going places and that’s very unfettered in what it can do and where it can go,” Gaines said. “It was defined by experimentation, so that really excited me.”

In his role as ArtPrize’s fourth executive director, Gaines will oversee all aspects of the annual competition, which opens Sept. 18, 2013.

Gaines also will work to move the nonprofit organization further along the path to self-sustainability, a goal ArtPrize has set its sights on reaching by the end of 2013.

“Christian’s expertise leading major, international festivals as well as working with artists and industry-leading technology services will help ArtPrize develop as a platform for creativity,” said Rick DeVos, founder of ArtPrize and chairman of the board of the nonprofit organization.

Gaines follows interim executive director Daryn Kuipers, who joined the ArtPrize team in July 2012 and supervised the fourth exhibition and competition, which drew an estimated 400,000 visitors to Grand Rapids.

“As we were interviewing people, Christian really came across as a person who’s done multiple things. His prior leadership was key with what we’re looking for,” said Kuipers, formerly financial manager at The Windquest Group, who will remain as a consultant to ArtPrize, transferring day-to-day management responsibilities to Gaines.

Gaines, 48, was born in Belgium to American parents, raised in the United Kingdom, and earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Vassar College.

Gaines, his wife, Kristen, an online retail entrepreneur, and their two teenage children will move to West Michigan this summer.
Rick DeVos, chairman of the board of directors of ArtPrize, explains what the non-profit organization was looking for in its national search for an executive director for ArtPrize.